Letter: Dylan spoke to Buckeyes' heartbreak

Sunday

Nov 12, 2017 at 5:00 AM

Many thanks to Curtis Schieber and The Dispatch for the Bob Dylan concert review ("Artist still spinning old hits in new ways," Monday). It’s not often that a Nobel Prize winner comes to town, and, appropriately enough, the old Palace Theatre was sold out.

Literally, a hard rain fell as the crowd funneled through the front doors. One woman remarked “This is just like a Buckeye football game.” Except it’s not, It was more like Dylan’s unique version of postgame analysis.

On a day when Columbus was mostly confused, Dylan provided a reprieve to the “magical thinking” that we’re always competing for a national championship.

He opened with “Things Have Changed,” and who could argue after the Iowa loss? He sang: “Any minute now I’m expecting all hell to break loose.” He captured the zeitgeist of Buckeye Nation. He then turned on the blame-throwers and the finger-pointers: “You say you’re looking for someone who can open each and every door, but it ain’t me babe.”

By now, it was game on. Dylan took us for a ride down “Highway 61,” where the ridiculous enters the realm of possibility. Iowa City is just west of here. On “Ballad of Thin Man,” he sang “Something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?” And Dylan took his fans to another familiar place to reveal another figment of the city’s magical thinking, “Cinderella peeking out from Desolation Row.” Sorry, the Buckeyes are not even a Cinderella team this year.

The Nobel poet left for his next tour stop, and the Illini are scheduled to arrive here on Saturday. The Buckeyes would do well to take some advice from Mr. Dylan: “You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you.”

Tom Borgerding

Westerville

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